He was Deputy to the Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov for the greater part of World War II, and, in 1944, was sent to Iran, where his controversial stance helped topple the Mohammad Sa'ed cabinet.

His last major office was that of Ambassador to Romania, where he maintained close contacts with the Romanian Communist Party faction formed around Ana Pauker and played a part in facilitating electoral fraud during the general election of 1946.

[8] Kavtaradze's political activities contrasted with his romantic life: he eventually married Sofia Vachnadze, a Georgian princess whose godmother was Empress Consort Maria Feodorovna (mother of Emperor Nicolas II).

[1] As the Civil War took hold of the Caucasus, Kavtaradze remained a representative of the Bolsheviks, active against the Menshevik government in the Democratic Republic of Georgia, and was arrested several times.

[1][4] Around that time, Kavtaradze joined Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition in their conflict with Stalin and other Party leaders,[1][11] and ceased his involvement with the group only as it collapsed.

[1] In late 1936, as the Great Purge was reaching its peak, he and his wife Sofia were suddenly arrested on orders from NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov, accused of "counter-revolutionary activities"[1] and of having conspired with Mdivani to have Stalin assassinated, and sentenced to death.

[7] British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore argues that this was a delayed consequence of a letter Stalin received in 1936: in it, the couple's eleven-year-old daughter, Maya, begged for her parents to be allowed to live.

[20][21] Sa'ed, who was by then involved in a conflict with the far left Tudeh and nationalist forces over having allowed British and American businesses the possibility of opening oil field in the country, did not reply favorably to the envoy's request.

[24] In parallel, the Soviet Red Army troops in Iran made the transit of Iranian forces difficult, and were present during a large-scale Tudeh demonstration in front of the Majlis building.

[26] In December, despite Tudeh opposition, Mohammed Mosaddeq successfully advanced legislation preventing any government official from granting Iranian fields to any foreign investor without explicit approval from the Majlis.

[27] Kavtaradze protested the change, claiming that it was aimed against the Soviet Union, but the Bayet cabinet refused to renegotiate and he returned to Moscow without having registered any gain.

[29] During early autumn, together with the Armenian SSR's Foreign Commissariat, Kavtradze analyzed the border issues between Turkey and the Caucasian Soviet Republics (see Tao-Klarjeti, Wilsonian Armenia).

This came at a time when Pauker won the trust of Soviet leaders such as Molotov, Kaganovich and Kliment Voroshilov—in contrast, her main rival, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, sought support from Georgy Malenkov and Beria.

[32] At a lower level, Pauker's relations with Kavtaradze were replicated by the close relationship between Gheorghiu-Dej and Mark Borisovich Mitin, the Cominform activist and Stalinist theorist.

[33] In autumn 1946, Kavtaradze, who regularly instructed Pauker, played a part in the electoral fraud that brought the PCR-created Bloc of Democratic Parties to power under Groza's leadership (see 1946 Romanian general election).

[34] In January 1947, as Romania prepared to sign the Paris Peace Treaty, he played a part in negotiating, with Premier Groza, Foreign Minister Tătărescu, and PCR activist Emil Bodnăraş, the Soviet takeover of islands on the Danube's Chilia branch.

[35] Since the Soviet-dominated Allied Commission ended its mandate (October 1947) and until his recall, Kavtaradze replaced Red Army general Ivan Susaykov as the most important representative of his country in relations with the Groza government, and, later, with Communist Romania.

"[18] In this context, Stalin charged Sergey Kavtaradze with editing a Russian-language translation of Shota Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin, which he was to complete together with the academic Shalva Nutsibidze.

[39] According to Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's political ally, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Kavtaradze was also on good terms with his faction, and, while in Romania, furnished them details on his youth and relations with Stalin and his earlier fall from grace.

[2] Bârlădeanu remembered Kavtaradze telling him that he was present at the 17th Party Congress of 1934, where he claimed to have cast his vote in favor of Sergey Kirov and against Stalin's choices for the Central Committee.